


Alpha Dog

by fnowae



Category: Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Crack Fic, Crack Treated Seriously, Downward Dog AU, Humor, I'm Sorry, Light Angst, M/M, brendon is an asshole and Pete...is a fucking dog
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 04:12:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11820972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fnowae/pseuds/fnowae
Summary: But I still love him, even if he needs a little push sometimes."Pete, what are you-" Patrick's mouth drops open when he turns around and sees the scene laid out before him. "Oh my god, GET OFF THE FUCKING TABLE!"And, it was like magic. He suddenly remembered my food.---The Downward Dog AU no one wanted, but everyone got. Because fuck you, that's why.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen Downward Dog...what have you been doing with your life? It's a fucking hilarious show with a brilliant premise and I highly recommend it. 
> 
> Would it work as a fanfiction? Well, considering the main character is a dog...uh, as long as you're ready and willing to turn a person into a dog, it will. 
> 
> Sorry, Pete. 
> 
> This is written in the style of the show, so the interspersed narration is imitating Martin talking to the camera. Also, I took some artistic liberties. Patrick and Joe don't have a history at the beginning like Nan and Jason did. Patrick works for a record label, not a fashion company. I'm not using Pepper in any way, shape, or form. 
> 
> That being said - it's a fanfiction. Why am I trying to take this shit seriously?
> 
> Enjoy!

_Sometimes I think Patrick is responsible for, like, ninety-nine-point-one-hundred percent of my problems._

Patrick stormed into his house, arms laden with too many groceries for someone who lived alone (not that he cared), and slammed them down hard on the counter, muttering sourly to himself as he went. "That fucking asshole, doesn't know what he's fucking talking about, I'm going to _kill_ him."

_Like, we were supposed to hang out tonight, you know? Wednesday nights are the time Patrick plays his guitar a lot and gets really angry about it, so then he keeps forgetting he's already fed me and gives me more food than he's supposed to. It's a good system that we have here. It is._

"Brendon is dead to me. Dead to me!" Patrick proclaims loudly, shoving a carton of eggs into his fridge before repeating, " _Dead to me!_ "

_He's forgotten my food entirely. I can't believe he would do that. Sometimes, Patrick can be a fucking asshole._

"I worked my ass off on that idea and what does he say?" Patrick seethes, slamming the last of his purchases into the cabinets with as much vigor as the task can possibly be done with. "Not interesting enough! I'll show him fucking interesting!"

_But I still love him, even if he needs a little push sometimes._

"Pete, what are you-" Patrick's mouth drops open when he turns around and sees the scene laid out before him. "Oh my god, GET OFF THE FUCKING TABLE!"

_And, it was like magic. He suddenly remembered my food._

"I fucking hate you sometimes, you know that, Pete?" Patrick groans, forcing his belligerent dog off the dining room table. "How the fuck did you even manage to get up here? Jesus."

He sighs as he pulls the dog food out of the cabinet and fills a bowl, setting it onto the floor. Pete rushes forward excitedly, and Patrick sighs again. 

"I'm so, so fucked, Pete," he laments grievously, then moans pitifully, "God, I'm talking to my _dog_."

_You know, Patrick and I really do have a system. And most times, it works out pretty well. For me. Mostly just for me._

///

Patrick stuffs his hands into the pockets of his hoodie and adjusts the strap of his bag on his shoulder, stalking huffily to work. He hates his work. He hates it. Well, mostly he hates his boss. He loves his work, but goddamn Brendon has to ruin it for him. Every fucking day of his life. 

He marches angrily into the building, sitting down at his desk with an exasperated sigh and pulling his laptop out of the bag slung over his shoulder. He opens it up and opens his latest project - not one he particularly likes, but certainly one that his boss will like. 

The two are absolutely mutually exclusive. 

"Patrick! What are you working on?"

Patrick spins his office chair to see his coworker/best friend beaming at him from the next desk over. 

"Hey, Andy," Patrick says, smiling weakly. Even if his boss sucks, at least he has his friend. Though that in no way makes up for his boss. "Not much. Just trying to pull the bullshit Brendon wanted out of my ass."

Andy raises a dubious eyebrow. "By the bullshit he wanted, you mean how he yelled about your last song and said it didn't have enough 'sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll'?"

"That is exactly the bullshit I am speaking of," Patrick replies sorely, swiveling his chair back to his own desk and plugging his favorite headphones in. He bites his lip anxiously as he holds them still in his hands and simply looks miserably at the track he's working on. He hates it. It's everything he hates about music. But it'll sell, that he knows for sure. 

"You shouldn't have to listen to that ass," Andy says, shaking his head like he's disappointed. He probably is - though not in Patrick. 

"Brendon's not an ass," Patrick lies blatantly. "He's just...troubled."

"So, he's an ass but you're too nice to say it aloud," Andy translates, smirking when Patrick makes a plaintive noise in response. "I know you, Patrick. You should do what you want to do."

"And get fired?" Patrick shakes his head, cringing at even the thought. He has no idea where he'll find another job that can financially support him as well as this one, as horrible as this one is. "No thanks."

Andy shrugs, turning back to his own work. "I'll support whatever you do. It's your choice."

Patrick sighs. "Thanks, Andy."

Andy makes a noncommittal noise and slides his own headphones on, indicating that he's done with the conversation. Patrick doesn't care - honestly, he is too. 

Patrick exhales dismally, pushing on his own headphones and pressing play on the track. He thinks it's fucking horrible. It's a good song, yeah. But it's still fucking horrible. It's everything he hates about the music industry in one track, but it's the only thing that will make his boss happy. 

He groans and starts working. Just a few more tweaks, and he'll be ready to present this to Brendon. Just a little more work. 

Before he can get lost in his work, he's interrupted by a sudden, brash, "Patrick, Patrick, Patrick! My favorite fourth favorite employee!"

Patrick pauses the track and slides his headphones off reluctantly, not wanting to even acknowledge the person standing behind him. "Brendon."

He turns slowly around to face his grinning boss, just as said boss asks, "How's the work going?"

"Uh...you can listen," Patrick offers grudgingly, offering up his headphones. He doesn't want to, but a listen-in is what he knows Brendon is trying to get from him, so he's gotta give it. Brendon accepts them immediately. 

Patrick purses his lips and pushes play, starting the track over. Brendon's eyes widen instantly. 

"Patrick! I love it!" he exclaims, which is exactly what Patrick had been expecting him to say, and that makes him hate it even more. 

"Yeah?" Patrick asks gruffly, watching Brendon's expression become more and more excited with each second of the music. He wants to kill the guy. No offense or anything, but he really wants this guy dead. 

"Yeah! I think you really have something here!" Brendon says enthusiastically, ripping off the headphones and tossing them back to Patrick, who can barely catch them in time to save them from falling to the floor. "Keep up the good work!"

"Thanks, Brendon," Patrick mutters as his boss strolls off, presumably to find some other employee to bother. His grip tightens menacingly around the headphones as he repeats, "Thanks a fucking ton."

///

_It's not that I don't like Joe, it's just that...I hate him._

Patrick perks up the second the doorbell rings, and he springs up, rushing to answer it. Finally, something good in this fuckfest of a day. 

"Hey, Joe!" he says as the door opens, grinning thankfully at the visitor, who grins right back. 

"Patrick!" Joe replies, pulling Patrick into a warm hug. Patrick laughs, standing still for a few moments before slipping out of Joe's arms. 

"What's up?" he asks, stepping back and motioning for Joe to come in. 

"Not much," Joe answers, stepping through the door and shutting it behind him. "How's work?"

_It's just, every time he comes over, Patrick only pays attention to him. He ignores the best things when they're right in front of him. Like...me._

"Well, it's been - Pete!" Patrick is cut off, and he laughs as he tries the shove the overenthusiastic dog off of him. "Stop jumping on me! Calm down!"

"He doesn't want you to think about bad things like work," Joe says, amused by the situation in front of him. "He wants you to think about the good things in life."

"If you say 'like me', I will personally strangle you," Patrick threatens jokingly, relieved when Pete finally calms down. He scratches distractedly behind the dog's ears, smiling down at him lazily. 

_And it's just, he comes around so much! I've tried murder, so many times. It just never works!_

"Well, I was gonna say - fucking hell, Pete!" It's Joe's turn to shove an excitable dog off of him, laughing as he does. "Come on, down, bud. Down."

_It's like he doesn't even know I'm trying to kill him!_

"He likes you," Patrick comments, watching fondly as Pete tries again to jump up on Joe. 

"He's used to being able to bowl you over in one jump, he's probably confused about why I'm tall," Joe quips, snickering when Patrick's face turns sour. 

"Five foot four and could still totally kick your ass, man!" he complains, wagging a challenging finger at Joe. 

"Kick my ass...at Mariokart?" Joe suggests, shrugging like it's only a passing thought, even though this feud has been on for weeks. 

"Oh," Patrick huffs, "you are _so_ on."

_You know, the way Patrick gets fake mad at Joe all the time is just like the way he always gets fake mad at me. It's like, either he's in love with Joe, too, or he just secretly hates both of us._

_Really, the more plausible option is he's in love with me and is just too nice to tell Joe to fuck off. And, like, I get it! He's a nice guy. I love that about him._

///

Patrick grits his teeth, blasting the track at full volume again as if hammering into his skull to the point where it's engraved on his forehead will make it sound at least okay instead of making his ears bleed. 

This method is not working. Not in the least. 

"Why the fuck does Brendon have to have no taste!" he moans, slamming his face down on the table repetitively until his head begins to throb with each impact. "Fuck!"

He sits up again and shoves another bite of his Subway sandwich into his mouth, too agitated to care about the crumbs falling in between his laptop's keys. A couple crumbs have never hurt his computer before. 

"Fuck!" he yells again, voice strained from how much yelling he's been doing previously. "I need the fucking bathroom."

He stands up abruptly, stalking off to the bathroom and grumbling obscenities under his breath as he goes. 

_Sometimes Patrick likes to play this game where he puts good food in plain sight, but somewhere kind of hard to reach. And then the game is I have to figure out a way to get it._

Patrick hears rustling from outside the bathroom door, but ignores it. He's too pissed to care about the outside world. Fuck the outside world! It's never done him any damn good!

_So, like, this time I got up on his chair and went for the sandwich. The game wasn't too hard this time. Not too much fun, but at least I get the food, right? And then sometimes he hides bonus foods. Like, there were crumbs everywhere in the ridges of his laptop. So, obviously, I helped myself._

Patrick strides haughtily out of the bathroom, and back into the dining room, ready to blast the terrible music again like it's going to help at all, and-

" _Pete_!"

_Sometimes at the end of the game he pretends he's mad at me. Patrick is a really good actor, but he could never trick me into thinking he's actually upset. I'm not that gullible._

Patrick gapes at the mess in front of him. Pete is licking between the keys of his computer, lapping up the sandwich crumbs - and the sandwich itself is gone now, fuck - and when he sees Patrick is back, he looks up woefully like he's actually fucking innocent. 

"Pete!" he whines again, advancing forward and shoving Pete off the chair. "No! Stop! No sandwich!"

He leans down to his laptop to inspect the damage as Pete stares dejectedly at him from the floor. The keyboard seems undamaged, but Pete had hit a few keys and closed Patrick out of GarageBand. Patrick groans and reopens it, ready to go straight back to his work after the minor inconvenience. But-

But apparently closing GarageBand wasn't all Pete had done. 

"No. No, no, no!" Patrick frantically searches the program, going through all his tracks. Most of his miscellaneous things are still there, various tracks he'd made out of boredom, but his huge project, the thing Brendon actually _liked_ , the one that was supposed to save his job-

Pete has deleted it. 

Patrick whirls on Pete, face going red with anger. "Pete! Fucking hell! What have you done! You-" He can't stop tears from pricking at the corners of his eyes, trickling down his face. "You fucking idiot! That was my one chance to make something Brendon was gonna like! I have to present that track to the label higher-ups tomorrow and I don't fucking have it anymore!" He works his hands into his hair, tugging exasperatedly at it. " _Fuck!_ "

_Sometimes Patrick is a really, really good actor. Sometimes he almost manages to convince me he really is mad. Almost. I know he still loves me, though. I'm not an idiot._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm updating this already because FUCK YOU THAT'S WHY
> 
> skshdhhes the spotlight referenced in this chapter is 100% spotlight (oh nostalgia) not spotlight (new regrets) because soul punk whom??? I only know our lord and savior TRUANT WAVE

_I get that Patrick likes acting. He does it in his spare time a lot. But, like, I think he's committing a bit too much to the role of being mad at me. He didn't even let me sleep in bed with him! In fact, he locked me out of his room! I'm proud of him for being a good actor, really, but this is going a bit too far._

Patrick groans morosely as he dials Andy's number, unsure who else to call about this. It's not like he has all that many friends - Andy and Joe are about it, and he's not waking Joe up at midnight, because he value's the guy's opinion on him too much. So, Andy, the ever-faithful best friend whose feelings toward Patrick can take a little soiling, it is. 

"God, Patrick, what time is it?" Andy yawns the second he picks up. 

"Midnight," Patrick responds, still fully awake. "I have a problem."

Andy sighs, and Patrick can hear the creaking bed on the other line as he sits up. "Alright. Shoot. Why the fuck not. It's only the fucking middle of the night."

"Thanks, Andy," Patrick mutters, and continues, "Okay, so...remember the song I was working on for Brendon?"

"The one you hated?" Andy elaborates. 

Patrick grimaces. "Yep. That's the one."

"What about it?" Andy asks, sleep slowly working its way out of his voice with each passing word. Patrick feels bad for waking him up this late, but it's important. 

"Uh...Pete deleted it," Patrick deadpans, wincing preemptively at Andy's response. 

"Pete...your dog?" Andy asks, dumbfounded and a tiny bit annoyed. 

"Yep. That would be the Pete to which I am referring," Patrick answers with a heavy groan. "He was eating sandwich crumbs out of my laptop's keyboard and he must've pushed some buttons and deleted it somehow!"

"So, great," Andy says, making Patrick want to kill him instead of take his advice. "You have an excuse to throw out a track you hate."

"I can't just pull a 'my dog ate my homework' on the fucking label execs, Andy!" Patrick's moans hopelessly, and he can practically hear Andy's realization over the phone. 

"Oh, shit, that's tomorrow!" he says, and now Patrick is ready to actually kill him, for real. 

"Yes, that's tomorrow!" he replies miserably, holding back a pitiful sob afterwards - he doesn't want to seem _too_ desperate, even though he totally is. "Andy, what do I do?"

"I don't know! Figure something out!" Andy answers, panic working into his voice as well. Now Patrick feels doubly bad for waking him up at this hour. He'll buy the guy a coffee or something. That'll work. 

_I think what it is...is that Patrick is actually sad. Like, not because of me, obviously, but he's sad and he's taking it out on me. For some reason. I can't figure out why._

"I can't just _figure something out_ between now and noon! That's twelve hours! I can't write a new Brendon-song from scratch!" Patrick whines, searching his mind even as he says it for some way that he can - even though he knows it really is impossible. 

"Then write a you-song," Andy suggests, his tone sounding pretty reasonable given the absolutely ridiculous suggestion he's just offered. 

_So, I'm thinking, what makes Patrick happy? Like, there's me, but obviously that isn't helping right now. So then I think...he's got this sad book. Sometimes he used to use the sad book when he was sad and then he'd get happy. And I know where the sad book is. So, like...I'm thinking yeah, I'm gonna bring it to him._

"Andy, I can't-" Patrick pauses and sighs. "Hang on, Pete's scratching at the door again. I can't fucking keep him out, can I? One moment."

He gets out of bed, stumbling tiredly to the door and pulling it open. Pete is sitting expectantly in the doorway, clutching something in his mouth. 

"Pete, what is-" Patrick begins, leaning down, then freezes as he retrieves the item from his dog's maw. It's one of his old journals, made of smooth deep blue leather with ratty, yellowed pages in between. 

Patrick straightens up, flipping through it with interest. Suddenly, he stumbles across something, and his eyes go wide. 

"Andy!" he yells into the phone, a grin spreading across his face before he can stop it. "Andy, I've got it!"

He leans down and whispers to Pete, scratching under the still-expectant dog's chin as he does, "Oh my god, Pete, you're a genius! You're an asshole sometimes, but also you're a genius!"

"What is it?" Andy asks on the other line, puzzled. 

"Pete's found one of my old notebooks..." Patrick begins, grinning at the pages in front of him. "God, it's definitely not a Brendon-song, but - why did I never use this one? Shit, shit, if I only have twelve hours - I gotta start recording this now!"

"Patrick?" Andy asks one last time. 

"I gotta go! Sorry!" Patrick hangs up immediately, leaping to his feet. Suddenly, he is even more awake than before. 

"Come on, Pete!" he says, rushing downstairs and reopening his laptop. Pete follows frenziedly, right at Patrick's heels the whole time. "This is it! This is so crazy it just might work!"

_And, obviously, I fixed everything. Not like that wasn't expected. I always do that. I'm really good at that. And that's why Patrick loves me._

///

Patrick smooths his button-up shirt, for the millionth time, and takes a sip of his over-caffeinated coffee, for the billionth time. He's running on no sleep and about twenty-five cups of this shit, but at the very least, he has something to present - even if it's not what his boss wants. 

He's seated at a huge conference table with about ten label executives, including Elliot, the guy that Brendon was extremely insistent they needed to impress. Apparently Elliot is, like, the highest-up of the higher-ups. He makes Patrick feel inferior just looking at him, with his wrinkle-less shirt and his perfectly smoothed back black hair. Patrick's heart may be about to beat out of his chest on this horrible concoction of anxiety and caffeine. Why did he think this was a good idea, again?

Brendon steps up to the front and clears his throat. All the executives stop their hushed conversations and look up expectantly as Brendon begins to speak. 

"Hey, everyone," he begins, beaming out at the crowd self-assuredly. Patrick cringes, knowing Brendon thinks he knows which song is being shared today. He really doesn't. Not at all. "Well, first of all, thank you for choosing our branch of the label to write a song for one of your biggest artists! We're very flattered!"

Patrick bites his lip and looks away. Yeah, this was a bad idea. A very bad idea. 

"So, without further ado, the guy who wrote the song..." Brendon turns his grin to Patrick, and Patrick shrinks back in his chair, unsuccessfully trying to hide behind his travel mug of steaming coffee. "Patrick Stump! Get up here!"

Patrick winces and stands, tucking his laptop under his arm. Well, it's too late. No turning back now. 

It's now or never. 

"Hey, guys," he greets the execs weakly as he walks up front, placing his laptop on the end of the table and plugging the aux cord connected to the speakers in. He looks back up and mumbles, "Uh...change of plans today. I don't have the song you're expecting."

There's a series of murmurs and confused looks among Patrick's small audience. He does his best to ignore them, and goes on. 

"I know you guys wanted a song for one of your big stars to use, and I know what you wanted it to sound like." He looks down at his laptop screen as he boots it up, frowning when he sees a couple sandwich crumbs still trapped between the keys. "And I wrote that song."

More confused looks. More murmuring. Patrick is going to get fired or die up here or both and then he is going to kill Pete - as a ghost, if he must. 

"But...I can't believe I'm even using this excuse right now...my dog ate my homework." Patrick laughs nervously. He can tell by the executive's faces that they think he's kidding. He sighs and continues, "No, really. He deleted it off my computer."

It takes a moment for everyone to realize he's completely serious. And when they do, their faces turn sour - disappointed at best, angry at worst. Yeah, Patrick's fucked. 

"Patrick, what are you doing?" Brendon hisses at him, his face full of confusion.

Patrick braces himself for yelling and people telling him to leave, to get out and never come back, but it never comes, so he goes on. "But...I still have a song for you. It's not really what I think you wanted, and I don't think it's good for the person you intended it for, but...it's something." He pauses and smiles weakly, explaining, "I wrote this one a while ago and...my dog brought it to me last night. I think it was fate, or something? Or I'm just going insane. But...here." He takes a deep breath, opening the file and preparing to press play. Right before he does, he looks up and adds, "It's called Spotlight."

Then he plays it. 

Patrick doesn't really like hearing his own voice, his own words, his own music coming out of the huge speakers, but he supposes it's better than nothing. And hey, if this is it, if this is how he gets fired - at least he's going out with a bang. Kind of?

Patrick is so nervous that he doesn't even realize the song has finished until someone starts clapping. He looks to see Elliot, the "hard to impress" label exec, clapping his hands together wildly. 

Slowly, the rest of the people around the table join in. Brendon just looks confused, slack-jawed amazement adorning his face. Patrick presses his lips together, unsure how to respond. Is it possible they actually...like the song?

"Patrick, I love it. I think it's just the breath of fresh air this industry needs right now," Elliot speaks up, standing up from his chair and smiling amicably. Patrick's heart soars, then plummets straight back to the ground as Elliot continues, "But..."

"But what?" Patrick prompts anxiously, preparing for the worst. _But it's not going to sell. But we actually secretly hate it. But we have a vendetta against positive motivation and you should just burn your laptop and curl up somewhere and die._

"But you were right," Elliot answers, nodding. Patrick is confused, until Elliot explains, "It really isn't right for the person we wanted it for."

Patrick's heart drops even further, if that's even possible at this point. Of course it's not going to be a success. He'd based his hopes off his fucking dog bringing him an old notebook! For all he knows, Pete was using the damn thing as a chew toy. It's not like he'd actually brought it to Patrick to help him. 

But then Elliot goes on. "And that's why I'd like _you_ to use it."

Patrick blinks, puzzled. He stands there for a second, two seconds, ten - nope, that still isn't making sense. "Excuse me?"

"I love your talent, Patrick, and I think we all do," Elliot says, looking around the table. The other guests nod their emphatic agreement. Elliot turns back to Patrick and says, "So I think I can safely offer you a record deal...I'd like you to record a new version of this song, more professionally, and maybe some more if you have them."

Patrick has no idea what to say to that, so what tumbles out of his mouth is, "I - I do have more, yeah."

Elliot grins warmly. "Then I'd love to hear those, too. Your branch of the label has a new first priority - producing _your_ album." He adds, gesturing with an inviting hand, "That is, if you'd like to?"

Patrick thinks he's going to faint, right here, right now. The lack of sleep has finally caught up to him and he slams back a huge gulp of coffee to try and jump start his energy again. It helps, a little. 

"Yeah," he says, smiling wider with each second as he realizes what's just happened. "Yes! Yeah! Okay!"

Elliot nods encouragingly. "Thank you. I hope to hear more good work from you soon. Go home now, get some rest. Your work can wait until tomorrow."

God, Patrick thinks, why can't Elliot be his boss instead of Brendon "if you don't show up it comes out of your paycheck, I don't care if you have 'a contagious, life threatening illness', Ellen" Urie?

But fuck - fuck! Is this really happening?

"No, thank _you_ ," he rushes out gratefully. "I - I can't believe this is happening. Um, thanks. So much."

"Go home, Patrick," Elliot says, smiling kindly. 

Patrick grabs his computer and nods. He's glad, for once, to follow an order. 

///

_I think it's really great that Patrick is happy. Which, obviously, is all because of me. I don't know what I did yet, but I sure did a good job of it._

Patrick bustles around the kitchen, pulling out the ingredients for spaghetti and turning the stove on, muttering to himself about what to do next and how he's supposed to handle this as he works. 

_I also think it's great that he's cooking. Because that usually means he's gonna feed me things. And that's always good._

Patrick pours the pasta into the pot, buzzing with excitement as he stirs it in. "Oh my god, I can't believe this is fucking happening!"

He freezes, staring at the cooking food, and groans, "Oh, shit, wait, this is way too much food for just me! Uh, fuck...I gotta invite someone over now..." He notices Pete staring up at him hopefully and rolls his eyes. "No, Pete, you already ate. Stop looking at me like that."

_Patrick is really rude sometimes. He should really work on that. I'm just saying._

"Uh, hell, I could have Andy over, but he works late Fridays...uh..." Patrick scrunches up his face in concentration for a moment, and then he goes into an expression of joy instead. "Holy fuck, I know I'm just thinking this is a good idea because I'm on an adrenaline high, but - I feel like I could do anything right now, so fuck it!" He turns to Pete, beaming manically. "You know what I'm gonna do, Pete? I'm gonna have Joe over for dinner and then I'm going to ask him out _right now_ because if Elliot can like my music then it's totally possible for Joe to like me!"

_Sometimes when Patrick gets happy he has really good ideas. And sometimes he has really bad ideas. This does not seem like one of his best, in my opinion. And we all know my opinion is basically fact._

"I'm going to call him right fucking now," Patrick announces, snatching his phone of the counter and dialing Joe's number. 

Joe picks up immediately. "Patrick?"

"Hey, uh, wanna come over?" Patrick asks, stirring the pasta with one hand and holding his phone with the other. "I made way too much spaghetti for just me, and I kind of need an excuse to talk to you, anyway?"

"Uh, okay?" Joe sounds a slight bit concerned, but Patrick ignores it. "I do love spaghetti. Be right over."

Patrick grins and hangs up. "Pete, I am a fucking genius!" he proclaims overzealously. 

_Patrick is a fucking idiot._

Patrick busies himself with finishing dinner, and setting up two plates at his dining room table. He's just setting the steaming pot of spaghetti down in the center of it all when he hears the doorbell ring. 

"Coming!" he calls, tugging off his oven mitts and running to throw them into the kitchen. He rushes back to the door and throws it open, revealing Joe standing in the doorway. 

"Uh, hey," Joe says, waving nervously. "What's up?"

"Come in, the food's ready," Patrick says, and Joe shrugs and walks in. 

Patrick pulls him by the arm to the table and waves to the second spot, where Joe sits down. Patrick follows suit a moment later, right after he spoons a huge helping of pasta onto each of the plates. 

Joe takes a bite and says through his mouthful, "Mm, you've always been a really good cook."

"Thank you," Patrick says, smiling and stuffing his own food down his throat. And Joe's right - it isn't half bad. 

They eat in silence for the most part, but for when Patrick has to scold Pete for begging at the table and Joe laughs. Finally, as Patrick is about to clean up, Joe clears his throat. 

"Uh," he begins, "you said this was an excuse to talk to me? About what? Should I be worried?"

Patrick's mouth drops open. Fuck. He'd forgotten his "genius" plan during dinner, and somehow it doesn't seem quite as genius now that he actually has to execute it. 

"Um..." He stands there awkwardly, trying to figure out a way to lie himself out of this situation. Then he sighs reluctantly and gives up. What choice does he have but to be honest? "I'm gonna clean up, and then we can talk, okay?"

"Okay?" Joe responds, perplexed. Patrick feels bad, but he needs a moment to collect himself. 

He washes the dishes as slowly as he possibly can, blatantly stalling for time. Finally, when he can't pretend he's actually doing something anymore, he puts them away and walks out to the living room. 

Joe is sitting on the couch, waiting, still looking at a loss. Patrick swallows his nerves and takes a seat next to him. 

"So, uh, this seemed like a much better idea when I was on an adrenaline high from being offered a fucking _record deal_ , but-" Patrick starts, but he's cut off before he can actually say it. 

"Whoa, really?" Joe asks, and it occurs to Patrick that he hadn't actually mentioned that to Joe yet. "That's fucking awesome!"

"Uh, yeah," Patrick says, nodding. "But that's - that's not the point."

Joe raises his eyebrows expectantly, and makes a "go on" gesture with his hand, so Patrick does. 

"I was going to ask - I was going to-" he winces. This isn't going nearly as well as his excitement-riddled mind had expected it to. He decides to just fucking go for it, averting his eyes as he continues, "I...I like you a - a lot, Joe, like...as in a _more than friendly_ way. And I was - I was going to ask you out, but that just seems idiotic now, and-"

"Wait, wait, wait. Go back. You what?" Joe asks. Patrick can't exactly gauge his reaction from his voice, but he's too scared to look up and see what's on Joe's face. 

"I like you. A lot," Patrick repeats hesitantly, finally allowing himself to look up and meet Joe's eyes. 

Joe doesn't look disgusted, or angry, or any of the things Patrick had been dreading. 

He just looks...happy?

"Well, fucking hell, Patrick, I like you too," he responds, laughing. 

"You - really?" Patrick asks, feeling like a fucking teenage girl talking to a crush as he does. 

Joe beams and leans in, lightly pressing his lips to Patrick's, then pulling back just long enough to query, "Does that answer your question?"

"Yeah," Patrick says, a smile decorating his face, too, matching Joe's. "It does."

And then he pulls Joe back in. 

_It's not that I'm against Patrick having a boyfriend. He can have a boyfriend if he wants. I know we have, like, an open relationship. I can date other dogs if I want, and he can totally date other humans. That's cool._

_But, like, come on. Of all people...Joe?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was ... gay

**Author's Note:**

> as always-
> 
> \- hmu with ideas/prompts/headcanons at my Tumblr: vicesandvelociraptors   
> \- comments make my day and make me wanna keep writing so if you liked it - tell me!  
> \- and thanks for reading!


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